Conventional keyboards such as found on touchtone telephones contain as many as 101 parts including mounting screws, studs and nuts. In addition to these many parts the final assembly requires the bringing together of three major subassemblies. Further, all the work in both subassembly and final assembly must be done by skilled workmen, with such work including countless soldering operations. Obviously the cost of the many parts plus skilled labor is high. Further, as is well known, humans make mistakes which lead to high failure rates of the assembled keyboards.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a keyboard having only a few inexpensive parts. As a corollary yet distinct feature, it is an object to provide a keyboard which is extremely simple to assemble and as such, is not subject to misassembly.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a keyboard having integral switch and spring members formed from a single piece of inexpensive non-corrosive plastic material or sheet metal.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a keyboard which is exceedingly reliable in operation.
These and other objects, novel features and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment.